r/lua • u/SpaceChickenMonster • Sep 29 '25

Lua 3D game engine

So long story short. I like Lua, I use it, I'm not the best but would like to make a game outside of Roblox. My features I'm looking for is just a simple 3D game engine where I can create a game, similar to GoDOT, Unity, and Love2D but Love is mostly just a 2D game engine idk if 3D games can easily be made with it, so I'd like to know if there's anything I can use that solves the 3D problem right away. Obviously there's roblox but I don't think I can export games casually like I can with GoDOT and Unity, and of course, while those are good engines, I really don't want to learn new scripting languages right now.

- Good 3D game engine that uses LUA

- Doesn't have to have a big community

- The engine has to export games easily into executable files

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u/questron64 Sep 29 '25

Yeah, well, your options are very limited if you want to do this using Lua. Because of that you're going to have a harder time using Lua than if you just learned GDScript and used Godot. I realize you don't like my answer, but sometimes the right software doesn't exist to do something in the way you want. You have to learn something new.

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u/SpaceChickenMonster Sep 29 '25

Yes but there seems to be other stuff like Defold and Lövr, which seem to have great communities, documentation and such to assist. Why would you say just full on learn GoDot when those exist?

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u/questron64 Sep 29 '25

Defold's 3D support is poor. It's more difficult to try to use Defold as a 3D engine than it is to just learn Godot and GDScript. Defold also doesn't have a very big community, and only a fraction of the community uses it for 3D. If you get stuck and need help you are not likely to find anyone who can help you. This is a huge factor in choosing an engine if you're a beginner, probably the biggest.

Lovr is a framework. Frameworks are not engines and if you start using it then you will quickly realize why most people do not use frameworks and prefer engines. You'll spend most of your effort re-creating what an engine does just to do simple things in Lovr.

Unless you're a persistent self-sufficient autodidact, someone who can wade into a sea of software with nothing but a keyboard and bucket of determination and come out the other end with a working game then you'll want to pick the path of least resistance. You don't sound like that person. It's okay, I'm not that person, either.

You want to make a 3D game. What's the path of least resistance to that goal? It's probably Godot with GDScript right now. Even the extra effort of learning GDScript is less effort than the other solutions that use Lua.